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There have been many changes in drama through the centuries, but whether it's Xanthias, Messenio, or the cast of Gosford Park, the comic role of the clever servant is entrenched. But the role is not stagnant, despite its stock nature, and each genre has its own distinct use for the character. Old Comedy, the realm of Aristophanes, barely developed the character at all, but as New Comedy matured, so did the clever slave, until, at long last, today there is even a clever servant hero. At each stage, the slave became a little fuller, a little deeper, but it began no more than a name. Xanthias is a slave. He's a slave in the Wasps, he's a slave in the Clouds, he's a slave in the Frogs, and he's even a slave in the Greek 101 and 102 Athenaze texts. His role is not particularly deep; in general, his presence is comic simply because slaves, by nature, are comic. This is illustrated nicely around line 738 of the Frogs when Xanthias and one of Hades' servants get together and discuss, what it is that they, as slaves, like. The caricature is silly and funny, and just exactly why slaves exist in Old Comedy: they make faces behind their masters backs, gossip about them to others, and try to get out of as much work as possible. Really, these traits have nothing to do with the personality of Xanthias, or the personality of Aiakos (Hades' servant), it's just a quick and easy explanation of why slaves are funny. The Frogs even opens with Xanthias offering to be funny, making jokes about how heavy his load is and how much his back hurts and, most of all, making fun of the fact that these are the exact same jokes that every slave tells in every comedy. Those first lines set the tone for the whole play - and actually, for all Old Comedy. Aristophanes is just looking for a few good lines. Xanthias remains undeveloped for the same reason all the characters remain undeveloped. The plays derive their comedy from verbal (literary) irony - not plot. Thus, the characters need to be flexible enough to be funny in whatever situation they are put in. For instance, the scene in the Frogs between Xanthias and Dionysus and the lion skin is hilarious - it's also completely unrelated to the eventual outcome of the play. There, Dionysus is a coward, because his cowardice with Xanthias acting as a foil is funny - but later in the contest, Dionysus being cowardly is no longer funny or relevant - and so the trait disappears. Though it may appear that scene develops the character of Xanthias, in reality, he's only a slave to the jokes. Consistency is not a plus in Old Comedy, but in New Comedy, it is essential. New Comedy has a very different form than its predecessor, and that changes everything. It's more like tragedy, in that the audience actually needs to follow the chain of events to understand and laugh at the outcome. Also, the humor in New Comedy, at least Roman New Comedy, doesn't really rely on verbal irony, but instead, dramatic and situational irony. Thus Xanthias, now called Geta, stops being a slave to the jokes, and becomes a slave to the plot. His new role is to make sure that everything turns out the way it should. The role of slave takes on new significance: he is loyal to his master, but also to himself. This dualism allows much more room for personality and development. In Terence's Phormio, for example, Geta is introduced at the start of the play as the faithful slave, and thus introduced, he remains consistent until the end. His role is to serve the family, though he suffers for it, both monetarily (he has to give wedding and birth gifts) and emotionally (everyone keeps yelling at him). In the end, the family is happy - through his contrivance - and he, as the faithful servant, is, too. But Geta, like Xanthias, appears in other plays as well, and his role is the same. Though there is more consistency, the character is hardly deep. But the slave of Roman New Comedy is not quite as shallow as that of Aristophanes'; because of the existence of plot, there are more character options. For instance, Messenio, in the Brothers Menaechmus, is not Geta. Like Geta, he leads the storyline, and his actions ultimately bring about the resolution of the confusion, but his role is more prominent: he is a subplot. Like Xanthias, he deals with the position of servitude, but he doesn't like it. He wants to be free. His character is more developed so that the audience will care about his fate. When, in the end, he wins his freedom, the audience smiles. Messenio provides the same foil as Xanthias, but his character is more than that: he is a slave, but he is more than a slave. Xanthias, we don't worry about. No one expects, or really wants, him to get his freedom. But we meet Messenio interacting with his master almost as brothers would. How can we be happy with him remaining enslaved, when he has showed himself to be more than that? Because the role of the slave in New Comedy is not funny by nature, he takes on a new role - but in the end, he is still serving the plot, not funny or heroic in his own right. Neither New Comedy nor Old Comedy could ever truly delve into the clever slave, not because the role was unworthy of further understanding, but more because neither genre developed any character. It was tragedy that allowed for the understanding of distinct personalities, but, despite Euripides radical changes to the form, we do not have any play with a slave as the hero. The Homeric idea that a tragic hero should, at least, be somewhat noble in birth, was carried on into the tragedy performed at the Dionysiac. Only recently has drama combined the influences of tragedy and comedy to create something that can truly appreciate the role of the clever slave. Gosford Park, a recent movie directed by Robert Altman, defies all the limiting traits of comedy and tragedy to create a story that is very funny, suspenseful, and sad. Throughout the movie, the noble lords and ladies are ridiculous and seem almost unreal in their privilege, the servants, by comparison, are quite accessible to the audience - which makes sense, as they are the lead characters. The foil of Xanthias and Dionysus appears again, mocking the somewhat useless upper crust, but there is also a very distinct plotline - this is not, by any means, slapstick. Like the Menaechmai and Phormio, there is a great confusion that needs to be resolved: there is a murder, and whodunit? But it becomes even more complicated when two people kill the same man, and why did they do it? And who are they to each other? There are two sisters, both who had children, both by the same man, and then they lost them - but we don't find out that they are sisters until the end, and though everything is made clear to us, nothing is resolved. We, the audience, know the truth, the sisters know the truth, some of the servants know the truth - but the mother is not reunited with the son, and no one gets accused of the murder. It is incomplete, and in that, quite like the tragedies of old. There's even a dead corpse that gets stabbed again! But more than that, the main servant, Mrs. Wilson, takes the yoke of necessity upon herself and loses everything she holds dear. On the other hand, she also saves everything she holds dear and gets away with it. Though the role retains its comic roots, and really is quite funny even simply by its nature - performing all the roles of gossip and avoiding work - here is achieved true depth of character, and the servants, finally, takes their roles as heroes. The tragicomic hero of Gosford Park was born out of centuries of clever slaves. It took Aristophanes' definition of slaves as funny by nature, Roman New Comedy's development of the plot and their role in suspense, depth of heroes of Dionysiac tragedy, and a couple centuries to allow servants into the role, but the finished product is a true hero.
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Contact me at ailiathena@yahoo.com Written for "Greek and Roman Drama in Translation" at Oberlin College in 2002 Last Updated April 19, 2005
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